Aria

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

I would have never guessed that I would EVER in my life deliver a baby naturally. I am such a chicken when it comes to pain. Cadence's delivery was basically that my water broke and by the time I got to the hospital I was 6 cm dilated and I had got the epidural and the rest was a relatively painless delivery except for the fact that I pushed for 2 hours. I still did not know what a contraction felt like so that morning when I felt my stomach hurt, I thought I had to go to the bathroom. The pain was very mild, but for some reason I timed it. Hmmm, every 2 minutes. I waited half an hour. Then tried to go to the bathroom. Nothing. Pain got a little worse. ok, time to wake Julian up and call the doctor. Doctor told me to come in. Julian calls Victor. Thankfully he had just gotten back from traveling for work and he was wide awake from watching a movie. I got ready really fast and told Julian that we probably can't wait another 20 minutes for Victor to get here. We did the bad parent thing and left Cadence sleeping for about 10 minutes by herself before Victor came. Doors were locked and she was sleeping. Hopefully she'll forgive us when she gets older.....

In the car, contractions were getting worse where I had to breathe heavily. By the time I got into the hospital room, I was moaning in pain and looking forward to my 1.5 minutes of relief between contractions. On a side note, I was happy to see that my favorite nurse from my last delivery was there for my delivery and that even though my doctor was not on call that night, the next best one that I liked was there to deliver my baby. Very soon did my 1.5 mins of relief go away. My contractions were literally on top of each other. Nobody wanted to tell me that it was too late to get my epidural. Even I knew that, but didn't want to admit it. My eyes were closed through all of this because of the intense pain and all I remember was hearing the doctor say "Sweetie, do you want to push?" I just said ok.... By this time, everything that people told me about giving birth naturally ran through my head. It really did feel like I was taking the biggest poo of your life. I had this desire to push so I did. There was an intense amount of pressure and stretching and I screamed not only because of the pain, but the shock the fact that I was going through this. After the first push, I thought, "I thought this was suppose to be really quick like people said?" and I couldn't take another push because I was just in shock. I was screaming and crying for help!! But for some reason, I pushed again really hard and I felt the rest of Aria come out. What a relief!!!! After she came out, I thought in my mind, "what the heck just happened..." I think the fact that I never would have thought I'd go through that made the delivery harder for me. If I had prepared myself of the possibility, then maybe it would have gone a "tiny" bit better....

My first words to Julian after this happened was "I am NOT going through this again" and I meant it. But of course as they all say, you forget about everything once the baby comes out. I don't think I necessarily forgot, but I would still consider having more kids. :)

Monday, May 11, 2009

We thank God, our families, and friends for all your support in welcoming our 2nd daughter into the world.

程恩信 Aria Mikayla Cheng, 9 lb 3 oz, 21inches, was born into the world on Monday May 11, 2009 @ 5:21 am through natural birth (we missed the epidural). Both mom and baby are resting and doing well.

Details

Meaning of name

Meaning of her Chinese name (given to her by Julian's dad, Shusing, who passed away on Feb 26, 2009)

程 - Cheng2 - process, way

恩 - En1 - grace

信 - Xing4 - faith, belief

Meaning of her English name

Aria - (Italian) a melody, a solo vocal piece with instrumental accompaniment, as in an opera. air; (Hebrew) Lioness - referring to the Lion of Judah of the Christian faith, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. We hope Aria's life will be a praise to God and a song of thanksgiving

Mikayla - (Hebrew) honoring or resembling God

Cheng - (Chinese) process, way

Welcome Story

We had a great mother's day weekend spending time with Julian's mom on Saturday and Julie's mom and sister on Sunday. Cadence went to sleep really well on Sunday night (something she hasn't done in a long time). Earlier that evening Julie and I had a feeling that baby #2 would be coming some time this week (due date 5/19 - but we heard the second one typically comes early).

3:30 am - Julie woke up with some pain thinking she had to go to the bathroom, but then started timing the cramping thinking they could be contractions. (With the first baby she didn't have any).

4:00 am - Julie still wasn't sure they were contractions, but by this time the pains were about 2 mins apart so she woke me up and we called the doctor who said to come in

4:10 am - In the car on the way to the hospital, she was in a lot of pain... this pregnancy was like a movie racing to the hospital (in contrast to the first baby where the Dr. said go back to sleep and come into the hospital in 4 hours)

4:30 - 4:40 am - got admitted to the hospital and wheeled her into the room and the bed. This time contractions were really hurting. The nurse came and did all she could and went through the motions of pumping Julie with a liter of fluid and asking for the Dr. to get ready for the epidural

5:10 am - Dr. arrived and said "this baby is coming now, we don't have time for the epidural." By now Julie's under a huge amount of pain

5:21 am - After what seemed to be an eternity of pain for Julie of some really hard contractions and pushing, the baby came out - 10 fingers, 10 toes, and alert and ready to meet mom, dad, and you all some day. =)

11:30 am - Grandma Regina, Uncle Victor, Sister Cadence, and Auntie Cindy came to meet the new family member. Jiejie Cadence already expressed her affection and protectiveness for her Meimei. The pediatrician needed to check Aria's eyes and they were taking her to another room. Cadence saw that Aria was being carted away and she started to cry, "Meimei, Meimei" and wouldn't stop until Daddy brought her with. We pray that they will be close friends and of course make beautiful music together :)

What turned out to be the longest morning ended up being the longest night. I had never tried to put Cadence to sleep without mommy there. basically things were going well until the bath and she realized Julie wasn't coming home tonight. then the rest of the night from 7:30 onwards she was crying incessantly for mommy. I eventually called the hospital and played a slideshow of pictures and videos of Julie and Aria. This would keep Cadence happy for a few minutes then she'd again realized that it wasn't the real thing and she's cry again. Meanwhile Julie is on the phone trying to feed / calm down Aria at the hospital. Every so often Cadence would hear Aria crying and say "Meimei cry" and then start either be really concerned or start crying herself.

I've never heard my three girls cry so hard in one day -- Julie - giving birth to a big baby with no epidural, Aria - coming into the world the first time, and Cadence - going to bed for the first time without mommy.